Banjo-Tooie XBLA coming April 29

Rare have updated their official website with a release date for Banjo-Tooie XBLA and a section of their site relating to the game. The game will be released on the 29th of April. The "Introduction" section for the game also reveals that among the expected changes, there will also be "UI tweaks that [the original Tooie dev team] felt were right to introduce given the benefit of hindsight."

The Banjo Blog has also been updated in regards to more Tooie gamerpics, coming in two sets that will be available for 80 Microsoft Points each.

The first set features Banjo, Mr. Patch, Gruntilda, Klungo, and Angel Bottles. The second set features Kazooie, Mumbo, Humba, (Zombified) King Jingaling, and Devil Bottles.

Finally, fellow Rare site MundoRare have updated with an interview with Paddy Burns of 4J Studios about Banjo-Tooie XBLA. The only real new thing about BTXBLA that it reveals, is that the game will not feature the hidden Bottles' Revenge mode or Xbox Live multiplayer. Very sad news.

Among the topics discussed are the origins of the Banjo porting project, what the process of porting entails, the amount of time spent on each port, their relationship with Rare, Stop 'n' Swop, the lack of Live multiplayer/Bottles' Revenge, artwork changes (such as a picture of Berri becoming a picture of Conker in BKXBLA), the Note-collecting glitch that unfortunately made it into BKXBLA originally, the sales of BKXBLA (above-average), Banjo-Tooie XBLA size (94 megabytes), and finally, that 4J would love to work Rare and Microsoft Game Studios again. Be sure to read all about it.